(ANSA-AFP) - BUDAPEST, SEP 24 - Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban underscored family values and slammed the LGBTQ and gender "lobby" on Thursday at a biennial demographic summit attended by Western conservative leaders in Budapest that cements Hungary's reputation as a bastion of conservatism in the European Union. First held in 2015, the so-called Budapest Demographic Summit takes place every two years to rail against migration and urge Christian couples to have more children. Among the first speakers at the two-day forum was former US vice president Mike Pence, who served under Donald Trump. Pence urged western nations "to renew and preserve our families on which our civilisations have been built". "Strong families make strong communities and strong communities make strong nations," he said, calling on governments to "put families first". Praising Orban for introducing tax exemptions for mothers of four or more, Pence blasted China for "decades of abuses in the name of population control" under its one-child policy. Orban, in turn, said "Hungary must defend itself because the western left-wing is attacking". "It is trying to relativise the notion of family, its tools for doing so are gender ideology and the LGBTQ lobby, which are attacking our children," he told the forum, also attended by the heads of state of the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Serbia. (ANSA-AFP).